It's funny, we get older and we like to think our tastes become more discerning and educated, and to an extent that's true, but suddenly you hear a song you haven't heard for a quarter of a fucking century and you feel weirdly alive. More alive than you've felt in a while. I can't drive so I can't buy a sports car. How does one express their middle aged frustration otherwise? Expensive bird feeders?

I saw Gordon Strachan break the net with a shot at St James' park when he was playing for Man United. Me and my dad got up and cheered then got spat on by lots of those friendly geordies. My dad got a bit angry and confronted some of them then the police intervened and asked us to leave. While my dad was arguing with the police outside I remember one of them telling him 'at least they didn't piss on you'.

I'm going off-topic but I like that word, transmuting, transmute, transmutation, transmuter

I remember many dreams from years past. I was a teenager when I had this dream and I'm decades older now. I'm still able to recall the wonder I felt. I held in my hand a device called a 'transmuter'. This allowed me to go anywhere, be anyone, at any time, without limitations whatsoever.

'I'll be able to fix any mistakes made! There's nothing that can't be resolved! There's no end! We have forever in our hands!'

I said that or thought that in my dream. My dreaming self felt love, goodness, those were eternal but fear wasn't. How did I know that? Why did I think that? I was free to be myself, no one could extinguish me, I was eternal. No fear of breaking what can't be fundamentally broken. What would you do if you knew you're forever? I was awestruck. It never occurred to me to do anything intentionally wrong. I absolutely didn't. Why is that? I ask this question not because I long for doing wrong in my conscious life, not then, not now. I'm awake and don't even own a mobile phone. I'm writing the question into an answer to myself. There's no such thing as wrong when everyone holds forever in their hand.

I'm infinitely jealous because my recurring dream when I was a child was of something unspeakable stalking me. A proper monster in the dark lurking in the shadows. Even in my dreams when I turned to look at it it melted away into the darkness. But I knew each time it was getting closer. This went on for years until one night I was sleeping on a friends couch and it finally touched me and just for a second before I began screaming I saw it. It was like a cloud, diffuse but alive and moving. Writhing is probably the best way to describe it. And I've never seen it since.

I'm infinitely jealous because my recurring dream when I was a child was of something unspeakable stalking me. A proper monster in the dark lurking in the shadows. Even in my dreams when I turned to look at it it melted away into the darkness. But I knew each time it was getting closer. This went on for years until one night I was sleeping on a friends couch and it finally touched me and just for a second before I began screaming I saw it. It was like a cloud, diffuse but alive and moving. Writhing is probably the best way to describe it. And I've never seen it since.

That reminds me of one of LeGuin's Wizard of Earth Sea stories.

A man's recurring nightmare made him wake screaming in terror every day. His wife had died and nightly she and others who'd died came to him in a dream. He and his wife loved each other deeply. She didn't want to frighten him but his help was essential to them all. The wall penning those in the underworld needed dismantling.

The man wandered the world alone because his horrifying dreams were disturbing to others. Ignorant of his situation and not knowing how to communicate his quest, he was shunned. People thought him cursed and thus bad luck for everyone. He was, however, a master mender, fixing broken things with his fingers and intention.

He came to the small-holding farm (one goat, meagre root vegetables and not much else) of the man formerly the greatest wizard the world had known lived. That man's name was Ged. He'd done his bit for the good of the world as a wizard. He was retired, happily scratching a living in peace unable to bend a spoon, no magic left in him.

After making some repairs on the farm, the tormented man and former wizard pondered what best to do. The nightmares came to an end after Ged stayed awake watching the master fixer sleep and kept horror away by laying his hand on his. The dreams became more productive and the story ends well.

That's how I remember the story; I may have garbled it. It was originally written by LeGuin. I left the book in another country and haven't read it again in many years.

I'm infinitely jealous because my recurring dream when I was a child was of something unspeakable stalking me. A proper monster in the dark lurking in the shadows. Even in my dreams when I turned to look at it it melted away into the darkness. But I knew each time it was getting closer. This went on for years until one night I was sleeping on a friends couch and it finally touched me and just for a second before I began screaming I saw it. It was like a cloud, diffuse but alive and moving. Writhing is probably the best way to describe it. And I've never seen it since.

That reminds me of one of LeGuin's Wizard of Earth Sea stories.

A man's recurring nightmare made him wake screaming in terror every day. His wife had died and nightly she and others who'd died came to him in a dream. He and his wife loved each other deeply. She didn't want to frighten him but his help was essential to them all. The wall penning those in the underworld needed dismantling.

The man wandered the world alone because his horrifying dreams were disturbing to others. Ignorant of his situation and not knowing how to communicate his quest, he was shunned. People thought him cursed and thus bad luck for everyone. He was, however, a master mender, fixing broken things with his fingers and intention.

He came to the small-holding farm (one goat, meagre root vegetables and not much else) of the man formerly the greatest wizard the world had known lived. That man's name was Ged. He'd done his bit for the good of the world as a wizard. He was retired, happily scratching a living in peace unable to bend a spoon, no magic left in him.

After making some repairs on the farm, the tormented man and former wizard pondered what best to do. The nightmares came to an end after Ged stayed awake watching the master fixer sleep and kept horror away by laying his hand on his. The dreams became more productive and the story ends well.

That's how I remember the story; I may have garbled it. It was originally written by LeGuin. I left the book in another country and haven't read it again in many years.

I read every night to my daughters until they were virtually into their teens, and I read the Earthsea books to the older one. My recommendation is to make sure you remember what's coming and read ahead - the fourth Earthsea book, Tehana, is to a large extent about how Ged's magic is linked to his celibacy, but he can understand life more fully after commencing a sexual relationship with Tenar.